While supply chain professionals have always had to understand the regulations that impacted their supply chains and required their organizations' compliance, this role has become even more pronounced.

Automation not only streamlines the work, but it often allows farmers to produce more and better products, and to continually monitor the health of their herds. It also helps those products move from farms to consumers' tables more quickly and with greater visibility.

When Pete Daly was diagnosed with malignant melanoma in 2002, he had to quit his engineering job during his treatment. He faced more than a loss of income—he lost his health insurance because, like nearly two-thirds of Americans under 65, he was enrolled in a health plan through work.

Consumer-driven health plans may not be the worst way to moderate escalating health-care costs, since they bring a strong measure of free-market principles to an arena largely removed from market forces.

For the past six years, Randy Wright and his students have been on a quest to end what they see as a dismal state of ignorance about the U.S Constitution among their fellow citizens. Equally important, Mr. Wright, who teaches civics at Liberty Middle School in Ashland, Va., would like to expose America's friends - and foes - around the world to the ideals upon which the US was founded. To reach these goals, Wright and his students have spent countless hours trying to move the Liberty Bill Act, which would place a condensed version of the Constitution on the back of the $1 bill, through the US Congress.